Last night I developed my 2nd roll of film, this one went a lot better than the first.
I got the film into the spiral without any hassles at all thanks to some tips on the Flickr “I Shoot Film” group. There are also several other useful resources, a photoset that shows it step by step complimented with some text to describe it and also a very good PDF from Ilford called Processing your first B&W Film.
I am using all Ilford chemicals and film at the moment based on the PDF file above and I am happy with the result so I’ll stick to it I think.
In terms of cost, it’s hard for me to say exactly now since I bought all the actual equipment from Jessops due to the website I got it from screwing me over, if you buy from the right places and do some research all the chemicals and tools you’ll need shouldn’t set you back more than GBP60.
There are some recurring costs for the chemicals, below a little table of costs and estimated amount of film I should be able to develop with each:
Chemical: | Cost: | Expected use: |
Ilfotec LC 29 Developer | GBP5.68 | 17 |
Ilfostop stop bath | GBP3.36 | 34 |
Ilford Rapid Fixer | GBP6.96 | 17 |
Ilfotol Wetting agent | GBP8.14 | 100s |
Based on the above the cost of each development is around 84p, add to this a fair amount of tap water but that can’t really be quantified in an amount.
Films I have bought till now at GBP2.99 each from places like Jessops, but I am waiting a shipment of 25 rolls of Ilford HP5+ from 7dayshop that cost GBP1.89 each.